Disqus - Latest Comments for TheMacMommy

Re: Do you have a decent paycheck? Betcha you're a white-collar professional, that is according to a recent CNN article re social media demos

TheMacMommy — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:53:50 -0000

Very interesting considering I belong to all of the social network sites and we're a family of 4 earning under 40k which is considered low income in the southwest. I wonder if they should perhaps look at education as an indicator and not just income because lots of us hold bachelors degrees and higher, yet while we're raising families, we're in lower income brackets due to student loan debt, financial downturn, mortgage issues, caring for older family members, etc.

I guess I'd rather think of myself as an educated Hippie rather than just a poor white collar Hick.

Re: Stylin' and Profilin' The Baby Bump

TheMacMommy — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:45:35 -0000

Aw, thanks so very much! It's comforting to know I'm not the only one who has felt this way. Thanks so much!

Re: Stylin' and Profilin' The Baby Bump

TheMacMommy — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:43:51 -0000

Thanks so much for the comment, Maven. Means a lot to me :) You really
brightened my day :)

Re: Time out, Max Baucus

TheMacMommy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:34:13 -0000

Yep. That's the question we all (in the education field here) ask and never hold our breath for the answer. My family back east can't understand why we don't just (uproot ourselves, destroy my husband's tenure & lose his career ladder benefits) and move back east so he could make double his salary all so we could afford to break even because of the higher cost of living there. Healthcare reform and education reform are the biggest challenges we deal with in this family. It's like we live with a constant double-whammy. We all suffer from "No Child Gets Ahead." Just when we think we have it bad with healthcare issues in this country, then we turn around and see even more red at what the Republicans propose gets cut from education and teacher compensations. It's sickening and I can only hope and stomp and tweet and blog that something gets done about it. Hope is all we have to hang on to anymore, but at least there is that, thanks to Obama.

Re: Time out, Max Baucus

Karoli — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:21:59 -0000

I can't even imagine for one second walking in your shoes. That is the scariest story I've heard yet. You know what bothered me the most (besides the almost unimaginable medical bills...)? That you were facing summer in AZ without air conditioning. I can't imagine such a thing...I've been to AZ in the summer and it's not pleasant at all.

The sigh of relief I heaved at reading that you'd been able to get into public health care was palpable here. What is wrong with this country that they want any of us to suffer this way?

I have the same question as you. Why can't they? Well, they can't because they don't want to. They don't see any benefit in representing people like us. We can't or won't fund their campaigns, or give them power. (Though we actually would if they actually represented us...)

It's wrong that you have to stay 'poor enough' to continue to qualify. That's not American, either, but it's what we have because we've managed to push past the selfishness for the elderly and the poor. Now if we could just manage to do it for the middle class folks who can't afford to live like rich folks.

Also...it's REALLY WRONG that public school teachers are not afforded the right to cover their families at reasonable cost, and that their salaries are so low they end up qualifying for public assistance. I'm grateful it's there for you, but why the hell aren't we supporting our teachers better than this?

Re: Time out, Max Baucus

TheMacMommy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:02:38 -0000

I feel your pain. Back in March I nearly had a nervous breakdown when I found out my pregnancy, birth and complications (– the ones I knew I'd likely have – which is why I made sure I had health insurance in the first place!! – like gestational diabetes and a c-section) were NOT going to be covered after I was told they would be by an insurance broker <snake> almost 2 years prior.

You see, I had purchased PRIVATE insurance for my son and I because to put us on my husband's employer insurance policy was going to cost us over $600 A MONTH in premiums. My husband is a public school teacher here in the state of Arizona and anyone can tell you, they don't make much. With two mortgages (the second to cover student loans and credit card debt from college) plus all the utilities and living expenses, we just couldn't afford the monthly premiums for which they were asking. I quit my job to stay home because my entire pay check was going to day care and we were all miserable and sick all the time because we were all in education environments. I wasn't able to properly recover from my C-section with my first son when I went back to work 8 weeks later. I could never get well working in a school for 10 bucks an hour with all of the stress and responsibilities for which I was not properly compensated. It wasn't worth it to keep that job and so there went my health insurance employer coverage. As we know, COBRA is a joke. So, after almost a year of being uninsured, I purchased private insurance after doing extensive research on different vendors. (yes, competition is good, but if you're not a lawyer, it really doesn't do you any good is what I found out the hard way.)

I thought I asked all the right questions. I thought I was making a good investment with the insurance provider I had chosen. The hard part was the high deductibles, but we were just hoping we'd never be sick seriously enough to warrant having to deal with them. We just wanted to be able to have basic health care for going to the doctor. Turns out, there really isn't such a thing. When I found out I was pregnant, I called my insurance company to get some more details in addition to the ones I had been given when I first signed the paperwork. It turns out an addendum issued spelled it out in black and white that a C-section, nor any complications would NOT be covered. It was MY fault that I did not understand the legalese language in which they wrote that addendum. Here I was paying additional money each month for a maternity rider I bought specifically to cover my prenatal and postnatal needs and all it got me, after thousands in premiums, was a $2000.00 maternity "benefit" that could only be applied to a NORMAL, UNCOMPLICATED vaginal birth. Had I known that was what I was shelling out for, I never would have purchased that plan! It's not like I didn't precisely spell out to the insurance broker that we were planning on having another baby and that my first pregnancy and delivery was complicated and I anticipated the next one to be complicated as well. I suppose my needs are no competition to commission and insurance company incentives.

At the same time I was finding out about the lack of coverage for my pregnancy, my son needed eye surgery that was going to cost over $6k and that was AFTER the $2500 deductible needed to be met (just for him, mine was also $2500.) Only 3 months into the beginning of this year and we were staring down the barrel of having to file for bankruptcy or else being severely crippled financially by mounting medical bills due to come our way. We had already taken out a second mortgage to help tackle our student loans (the ones with horrible government interest rates that had compounded over the past decade) and credit card debt. Any more and we were in danger of being upside down on our home. (Did you know that a self-pay C-section can cost around $10k and one covered by insurance can cost up to $40k?) I felt like I was standing in front of a speeding train. It was awful. I was experiencing panic attacks. It's a wonder I didn't miscarry this baby with all the stress and anxiety I was under in the beginning. I felt so doomed.

With summer approaching, we had been hoping to install air conditioning in our 1950s home in which it would get up to 93 degrees inside our living room at times. I couldn't bear the thought of going through my pregnancy this summer with a swamp cooler for yet another year. When it was just my husband and I living in this house, that was one thing, but now with a young child and another on the way, you tend to want to make your home as comfortable as possible. I didn't think this was too much to ask, but when it came down to what our monthly premiums, deductible and co-insurance was going to cost us, well, how dare I think about upgrading our home!

So, when you talk about imagining having to choose between health care and other things, in our case – between desperately needed home improvement and 2 surgeries for 2 family members (my son's eye surgery and my probable c-section), I know exactly what that feels like. Despair is about the only word that comes to mind.

These fat cat politicians don't know what living like that is all about. They don't have to make choices between their health care and the things they need or want. They want for nothing and it makes me sick, quite literally.

Luckily for me, I was diligent and resourceful thanks to suggestions from friends and my beloved online community. I was able to get both my son and I onto public medical assistance because we qualify as a low income family with the baby on the way making us a family of 4. We pay a very small monthly premium for my son's health care and then everything else is covered. For the remainder of my pregnancy, my health care needs are covered, including my delivery. Finally I could relax a little and try to have a healthy pregnancy. As a result of qualifying for state medical assistance, we can now afford most of the things we NEED as well as a few of things we WANT — which, by the way, ALSO allows us to be contributing members of a STIMULATED economny. When we're not so burdened with outrageous health care costs, guess what? We can actually afford to make purchases beyond food, clothing and housing! What a freakin concept!!

My son was able to get his eye surgery and we were able to upgrade our home with air conditioning thanks to my husband taking a second summer job and me picking up a few additional freelance clients with my mother in law babysitting. My prenatal care has been covered including my prescriptions and things I need to manage my gestational diabetes. We can at least breathe now, but it's not at the cost of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Since we're on state medical assistance, we have to, well, basically remain "poor" enough to qualify so we can afford to have medical coverage. If we make too much or if the government cuts programs, we will be back to making some difficult choices we'd rather not make. Basically, our life and well-being now hangs in the balance so it's still a bit stressful. We try to be as conservative as we possibly can without allowing ourselves to become too depressed when we can't afford all the things we want. We don't use credit cards and when there is something we want, we wait until we can afford it. There is no such thing as instant gratification here much of the time and that's jut the way it is. We just try to be responsible with our lives.

My question is, why can't our representative do the same? Why is that too much to ask?

Re: Some Results & Findings

TheMacMommy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:12:16 -0000

Oh yay! The little send button I copied and pasted showed up right where I wanted it to. Odd that it went on a separate line over on my Posterous blog.

Re: Does Not Play Well With Others

TheMacMommy — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:06:26 -0000

Just noticed I could respond to this reply using email, but now I'm
curious as to how it works with the moderation settings. Will it
automatically publish this comment thread then?

Yes, painful is a good word for it!! (Since I'm a typesetter by trade.
It even pains me to leave it like that, but I was trying to make a
point.) I'm sure it might even be something I could fix in the
template code I've tweaked along the way. Regardless, I'm finding
Blogger's UI to be just too much of a pain to work with for posting
blogs anymore now that I've become spoiled by nicer UIs out there.
BUT....you get what you pay for, which in my case, and being the
fruagalista that I am, I have to watch just how much I complain about
this.

I've also tried Wordpress and found faults with it as well. Of course,
I was not doing the hosting part, it was a collaboration and someone
else was hosting it and that presented its own set of problems. I
really like SquareSpace, but as with the others, it has its issues as
well. Most people complain about the price as well. I'm paying for the
audio hosting and my partner is paying for the blog hosting and it's
about the same price so yeah, that does bite, however, it seems like
you get what you pay for in that paying the fees to SquareSpace does
make it a pretty quality product in all you get for your money. It
just streamlines everything. The only thing that is frustrating me
right now is the lack of compatiblity for "Internet Exploder" but that
is in no way SquareSpace's fault. I just wish no one would use IE and
we could move on in life, but that's sadly not the case. So, I feel
bad for the handicapped IE users out there who can not view our page
correctly. It's just not fair to them.

I agree with you about Blogspot and many blogs looking the same.
That's why I spent a lot of time tweaking my template and code to beat
it into submission to make it look the way I want, yet it still isn't
perfect and never will be. That blog is something I use to cut my
teeth on though so I try to keep that in mind.

Ok, time to see what this response will trigger in DIsqus. WIll you
get a notification of reply? Will it automagically accept the comment
and post it? Let's see.......

Re: liana lehua - I thought it would be fun to mod an existing...

TheMacMommy — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:05:50 -0000

Hey Liana! Love to see you in your geek element! I saw this and thought of you :) http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/five-rea...

Re: ATE ALL MY FOOD

TheMacMommy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:10:22 -0000

Can you see the video comments? Lucian and I tried to make one earlier but it didn't post and then we tried again, he got silly and then he picked his nose! Well, I hope you enjoyed it anyhow :) We prayed hard and will continue to do so - it's paying off! w00t! So happy for you! Hey, do you like avocados? Wish I could send you some of my guacamole!

Re: ATE ALL MY FOOD

TheMacMommy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:06:47 -0000

Yay Liana! Keep up the great work!

Re: Moms Gone Geek - Blog - MGG 012 Mobile Mania

TheMacMommy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:55:51 -0000

Hi Rob, thanks for the great advice and for listening to the show! :)

Re: Moms Gone Geek - Blog - MGG 012 Mobile Mania

TheMacMommy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:55:28 -0000

That's an awesome point Allison! Thanks for listening to our first solo show! :)

Re: Hashtags 101: How-To Use Hashtags - Share YOUR #hashtagtip

TheMacMommy — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:39:17 -0000

I love #hashtags! I use them whenever I can. I created the #suckit hashtag for @QueenOfSpain a long time ago since she used that term so much and we found it amusing. Now I see lot's of people using it. (I giggle to myself whenever I see others using it.) It's taken on a life of its own now. It's not a nice term, but sometimes when you're frustrated or really wanting to alert people to a bad experience with a company, product, service, etc. you think others should avoid, twitter can serve as a steam vent for those times and #suckit is one of those terms that helps you vent.

You don't want to end up on the #suckit list – it's kind of like being on Mr. Blackwell's Worst Dressed list. That's just one example.

My favorite way to use hashtags is to keep a micro-baby journal about my son, #LD. Most of my closer twitter friends know I'm talking about my son and will also refer to him in an @ as #LD. He's not just LD anymore, he's #LD. It's his nickname now: "pound-L-D."

Now, #LD of course is not a unique hashtag but I'm using it for my personal journal so it doesn't matter. I subscribe to my own twitter RSS feed using Mail.app and NetNewsWire and that way I can archive all of my tweets and #LD makes for a unique search term in a Spotlight query. At any time I can search for #LD using NetNewsWire or Spotlight and I can find a list of all the tweets that have #LD in them which basically gives me a time-stamped little baby journal of all things relating to my little boy.

With another one on the way, I'm working on thinking of a tag for the new baby. During my pregnancy sometimes I tweet things about crazy food I crave so that's tagged #cravings. Again, these tags are searchable so I can query them later and compile a journal of them all. It doesn't matter who else may be using the same hashtag because they won't show up in my RSS feed that I'm using to compile my thoughts.

Anyhow, this is a fun topic. Thanks for posting it. I can understand how people might be annoyed by hashtags, but it's like anything else — twitter is a personal tool and you use it how you see fit. If someone doesn't like the way you use the tool, well, they can just #suckit. ;)

Re: Getting and Staying Organized on Your Mac

TheMacMommy — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:40:34 -0000

Thanks Brian! BzzAgent looks like a cool product. I'll have to check into that more. Glad you liked the post and thanks for re-posting it on BzzAgent.

Re: Getting and Staying Organized on Your Mac

TheMacMommy — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:39:30 -0000

Glad you liked the post, Vince. I always hear great things about Quicksilver and you're right, it's a great way to minimize clutter.

Re: Getting and Staying Organized on Your Mac

freestyles — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:59:18 -0000

It's truly my pleasure to admire what deserves the admiration.

Thanks
Emma

Re: Getting and Staying Organized on Your Mac

TheMacMommy — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:36:12 -0000

Emma, thanks so much for the uplifting comment, I'm so glad you've enjoyed it. That's why I'm here. :)

Re: Getting and Staying Organized on Your Mac

TheMacMommy — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:34:43 -0000

Elena, I hope you'll get to enjoying your Mac experience. There are a lot of switchers out there who give great support. Check out http://www.switchmac.com - my friend Rob has great switching advice. Best of luck to you!

Re: MGG 006 Mobile Mania!

TheMacMommy — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:27:56 -0000

Hi Rob, thanks for the great advice and for listening to the show! :)

Re: MGG 006 Mobile Mania!

TheMacMommy — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:27:20 -0000

That's an awesome point Allison! Thanks for listening to our first solo show! :)

Re: Gestation 2.0

TheMacMommy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:25:09 -0000

Aww, thanks Steve. That's so sweet of you :)

Re: Check Out Them Apples!

TheMacMommy — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:39:01 -0000

Wow, Amy, thanks for the comment. Were we separated at birth?!!

Re: Check Out Them Apples!

TheMacMommy — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:40:22 -0000

Hiya! Thanks for the comment. We are all doing pretty well, thanks!! I'm so excited Boy Childis liking his Mac for photography. That's awesome! We just won't tell the Mr. about this, ok? ;) If Boy Child ever has any questions, please feel free to have him contact me :) I miss you lady. Can't wait to see you guys again.

Re: Check Out Them Apples!

TheMacMommy — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:37:09 -0000

I used to know the answer but it's all a fog now. (an apple-scented Salon Selectives fog!). There was a bit of a grunge movement starting when I was a teenager, plus I was also what they called a "techer" (as in someone who attends a Vo-Tech as opposed to College Prep.) It was quite derogatory back then.

Actually, I used to wear my Dad's flannels to school. (like the one pictured) This is really sad, but it's partly because my parents were going through a nasty divorce and custody battle over me. I was a daddy's girl and wanted to be closer to him. I had a limited wardrobe when I moved in with him during the divorce and since flannels were cool, it worked out for me.